A popular statewide program to boost the competitiveness of small manufacturers says proposed cuts in federal funding could price its primary customers out of the market for its services.

But the head of the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center said bipartisan support from Michigan's Congressional delegation and other federal lawmakers has him hopeful that full funding will be restored.

"This happens every year," said Mike Coast, MMTC's president. "The president is not in tune with manufacturing. ... He's going to cut the program of the folks that we serve.

"We're very optimistic that the full funding is going to be restored."

President Bush's proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 calls for slashing funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership from $90 million to $4 million, enough to continue with current customers before phasing the program out altogether. The program is the umbrella organization for organizations like MMTC.

In the 2007 fiscal year, MMTC clients in Michigan reported more than $100 million in sales, $18 million in cost savings, 956 jobs created or retained, and $30.5 million in investments made, the center's survey data show.

At the same time, Bush's proposed budget, submitted in February to Congress, increases funding for high-tech research and facilities construction by 22 percent to $634 million.

"Our mission isn't changing, our mission is to support U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness," said Gail Porter, spokeswoman for the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

She deferred to comments made by James Turner, the agency's acting director, who told a Senate subcommittee on March 11 that the budget "reflects the administration's focus on its highest priorities" including basic research and the need to restrain spending. He said the $4 million was "enough for an orderly end to federal funding for the program," according to a transcript of his prepared remarks.

The MEP program provides consulting and access to public and private resources in areas like lean manufacturing, quality systems and customer and market diversification. It is funded a third each by the NIST, state funds and fees paid by the manufacturing clients.

The MMTC employs nearly 60 between its Plymouth headquarters and satellite offices in Grand Rapids, Saginaw, Flint, Traverse City and Marquette. Its customers typically have between 15 and 500 employees, Coast said.

The MMTC recently helped Mopec, an Oak Park manufacturer of autopsy equipment, grow from 20 employees to 60, Coast said. It helped South Lyon-based Michigan Seamless Tube institute quality programs and streamline waste and add what CFO Paul Maier said was as much as $200,000 to last year's revenues.

"In the context of the work that they did, they were able to step back and really come to the table with an objective eye, and when it was all said and done, they were able to provide more than the value that we expected," Maier said.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm and 19 other governors recently sent a letter to key U.S. House and Senate leaders asking them to reject the president's proposal and increase the program's funding to $122 million.

U.S. Rep. Vern Ehlers, R-Grand Rapids, a longtime proponent of the program, sits on a House subcommittee that also heard from Turner last week. He said there appears to be "significant support" from lawmakers for MEP and the Technical Innovation Partnership, which the administration would no longer fund.

"It's very simple," Ehlers said. "Other countries do it, they give a fair amount of money to their manufacturers to do it.